pa brides- can friends or family officiate?

Hi there! I am getting married in May 2022 in State College and my best friend is marrying us. She is getting her officiant license online and then we will apply for our license with her information. Hope this helps!

View Quoted Comment Thanks! Where is she getting her license from online? And did the county confirm that’s accepted? I’ve been reading a ton online and have seen that PA doesn’t recognize online ordaining licenses or officiant licenses and am nervous it won’t be a legal marriage because of that. Wondering what you have learned through your process so far?

Hi! I'm from Vegas and this is what we did. My husband's cousin was the one who officiated us.

She sent in an application to officiate at the marriage and license bureau.

She took a class online. Unfortunately, I am unsure where. I think she asked the office or they gave her a document where to take the class. Then we had to sign some other document with her that also needed to be notarized.
Then when my husband and I went to get our marriage license (license to allow us to marry in state), we also received a document for our officiant to also sign for performing the ceremony. Then we just sent it in and waited for our marriage certificate to come into the mail.

Hi Nicole! In Pennsylvania they don't recognize online ordinations. You need to be an ordained minister, priest, or rabbi of an established church or congregation (so you need to be the leader of an active place of worship) in order to officiate weddings.

The way around this is to apply for a Self-Uniting Marriage License. It's a similar process to getting your marriage license, but you will need to let the clerk know that you are applying specifically for a self-uniting license! You will both need to sign the license and also have two friend witnesses.

Once you have your self-uniting marriage license you can create whatever kind of ceremony you want and have your friends or family officiate!

We're going the Self-Uniting Marriage License route in PA and already talked to the court house to make sure it was legal. Yep. Sure is.